The Labyrinth Lounge
by R. H. Jones
Summary: So, between fics, they all wait in this little room. Now Jareth is getting real tired of singing that song, and he really just wants a nap...


Jareth pulled Sarah into a crushing embrace and kissed her deeply. One of his hands slid to her lower back as the other tangled itself in her dark hair, pulling her even closer. Her arms found their way around his neck and she arched into him with a contented sigh. Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, they had found each other again and nothing would pull them apart now. Sarah broke the kiss and pulled away from him just enough to look into his mismatched eyes and spoke softly, "I love you, Jareth. I'm yours forever."

He chuckled and kissed her forehead. "Forever, my love, is not long at all."

Just as this tender moment ended, Jareth and Sarah were roughly ripped from the scene, landing with a slight pop in the middle of a sterile room amidst an assortment of other worn out and bored looking people and creatures. Jareth surveyed the room for a moment, taking in the faded plain wallpaper, hard blue carpeting and single door where a large bald man in a tight black T-shirt stood, before spotting his destination and walking across the room to a worn leather couch and laying down.

"I am _so_ sick of that line!" he hissed, rubbing his temples as he flopped back. "And if they make me sing that damn song again I swear it I'll rip someone's throat out."

Sarah sighed and walked over to the couch. "Move your feet."

"No."

"Please, Jareth. The other seats are taken and you have no right to a whole couch." She nudged at his boot, trying to get him to make room.

"Yes, I do. Do you have _any_ idea the way they abuse me? I don't think I've slept in months, and apparently, it's all your fault. First I'm all shut up in a tower or something, _not sleeping_, and I hardly get to eat, either, because I'm all broken up about the little girl who defeated me. Then she comes back, and oh look!" he clapped a hand to his cheek in feigned excitement, "We have lots of hot, near pornographic sex, _instead of sleeping_. Which," he added with a slight smirk, "I'm not _exactly_ complaining about, but it doesn't excuse the fact that I am absolutely _exhausted_ from..." Jareth stopped and closed his eyes. "I'm going to sleep now."

"You, Jareth, are impossible." Sarah braced herself on the arm of the couch and pushed his feet off, then sat down quickly before he could replace them.

"No," he said, glaring at her, "what's _impossible_ is the fact that _none_ of these people seem to know how to observe before they describe." He sat up quickly and grabbed her by the shoulder. "Look at me, Sarah. What color are my eyes?"

She sighed and rolled her own eyes, "Blue, Jareth, they're blue."

"THANK you." He dropped back down on the couch, leaving his feet awkwardly dangling from the side. "One enlarged pupil does _not_ change it to green, or brown, or hazel, or _purple_..." His mutterings died down and Sarah leaned her head into the couch, looking at all the other characters of the Labyrinth fandom lounge.

Hoggle was sitting by a low table, playing cards with Didymus, and Ludo was settled against a wall, sleeping. The worm had nestled himself into a styrofoam coffee cup and was chatting with the Wiseman's hat, the Wiseman himself softly snoozing in a folding chair. Other miscellaneous characters sat throughout the room, talking amongst themselves or sleeping, some finding entertainment in random objects that were laying about. One fiery was building a small tower with paper cups and another who was hiding behind the water cooler would remove one of his limbs to knock down what the first had managed to construct as soon as he looked away to retrieve more building supplies.

In one corner, talking to an adolescent Toby, stood a girl without any distinctive physical features. Mary Sue. Ready to bend to any self-inserting author's descriptive will. A look of annoyance passed over Mary Sue's face as a goblin came running past her, nearly knocking into her leg. A moment later she sighed heavily as she disappeared from view.

Jareth grumbled unhappily and hit the back of the couch. "Can't I get just a small break? I mean, really, _everyone_ in here gets a day off sometime. But, nooo, not me..." his rant was cut short as he was sucked into another story and off of the couch, leaving Sarah free to stretch out herself.

He was right, though, she had to admit. Even as the main character of the story, Sarah was often enough replaced with Mary Sue and didn't have to bother making an appearance. Jareth, on the other hand, was a constant factor. No fangirl was writing Labyrinth fiction without _him_ in it.

Sarah laid back, the spot where Jareth had been still warm, and found it hard to resist dozing off with little else to do. She yawned and rubbed her eye sleepily, settling in for a nap.

Some time later, she awoke to the feel of someone's breath on her cheek and opened her eyes to find Jareth standing over her, no more than a few inches away. He narrowed his eyes at her when she looked at him, "Hypocrite."

"You left, it was free space." Sarah stuck her tongue out at him.

"You're in my spot, and I want it back."

"No," she glared at him, "You were rude to me."

Jareth stood and glared back at her. Then inspiration hit him, and he smiled seductively. "I could make it worth your while." He quirked an eyebrow, looking at her pointedly.

Sarah huffed and rolled over. "Jareth, we're in a room full of people. What do you think you're going to do?"

Jareth sighed and pushed her feet off of the couch, much the same as she had done to him earlier. "Another story is never far away," his hand ran lightly over her knee. "I might decide to play it out with a bit of extra...enthusiasm."

"Would you two _please_ stop flirtin'!" came a voice from across the room. "Yer making me sick." Hoggle shot them an irritated look and Jareth rolled his eyes.

"Shut up, Hogbrain."

"Hoggle," Sarah reminded him. Hoggle only glared daggers at Jareth.

"Right. I said that."

Sarah sat up, making more room for Jareth. "You know, I think that...oh, damn," she sunk back into the couch and Jareth growled in frustration.

"I swear it, I swear to god, if I have to sing that song _one more time_..." and with that they both were gone, leaving the couch to whoever else felt like napping.

One bad fanfic and several obligatory sex scenes later, the couple returned, only to find their couch occupied by several goblins and one nesting chicken.

Jareth scrunched up his face bemusedly, "Why the hell would I own a loin cloth?"

Sarah held a similar expression on her face. "You know, I don't know, and let me tell you, I have never seen a cake go moldy so fast." Mary Sue stared up at them from her chair, clearly confused. Sarah looked back at her, "You really don't want to know."

Jareth shook his head slowly. "That was amazingly bad. I think it must have been written by a twelve year old boy..." Jareth started to fade away again. "God DAMNIT! Not TWO minutes!"

Sarah sighed and poured herself a cup of coffee, then found an empty chair along on wall and sat, waiting, staring off into space. She set her half-drained cup on the stand next to her and closed her eyes, just for a moment...

Jareth and Hoggle appeared then, and Sarah woke up. The king and the dwarf looked at one another briefly before walking (half running, really) to opposite sides of the smallish room. Hoggle leaned up against the wall and slid down, sitting on the floor curled into a ball. Jareth stood completely still, eyes wide, half huddled in a corner and staring at the wall.

Mary Sue turned to Sarah, confused at this behavior. "What the hell?" she whispered with a raised eyebrow.

Sarah sighed and shook her head. "Damned fanfiction authors."

"Well, _what the hell_?!" Mary sue looked at her expectantly, and Sarah sighed again.

"Slash," she whispered, and Jareth's head shot up to look at her, horrified. His eyes widened even more, if that was possible, and he let out a shudder that shook his entire body.

"Oh," Mary Sue's brow furrowed, and she sat down right where she was standing.

Jareth started breathing heavily, and he suddenly let out an aggravated growl and let a fist fly towards the wall. Sarah looked at him for a moment, jaw dropping slightly. "I CANNOT take this anymore. I cannot, I _will_ not," he stomped off towards the door, and stopped before running into the man who held his vigil at the only exit.

The man, who was quite a bit taller than Jareth, looked down at him and raised an eyebrow.

"Let me pass," Jareth narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Sorry, man, no one goes in, no one goes out."

"I DEMAND that you let me pass."

"No."

"I..." Jareth thought for a moment. "I need to use the facilities."

The man looked at Jareth, amused. "Nice try. Fictional characters don't urinate." He thought a moment. "Except for the little guy."

Rage boiled up inside of the Goblin King. "You _will_ stand aside."

"Or what?" he chuckled, "You'll stab me with your glam mullet?"

"AAGH!"

One moment, Jareth was standing in front of the man at the door, the next that same large man was slumped on the floor, Jareth standing over him with the broken remains of chair legs in his hands, splinters littering the area for ten feet.

The man groaned and Jareth threw the chunks of wood he held at his head. He then started beating furiously at the locked door, finally using a table to remove the doorknob completely.

With a victorious yelp, Jareth flung the door open and ran out into the sunlight. He was running down a strange street, basking in his new freedom, when he heard a loud, high pitched squeal.

"ZIGGEEEEEE!"

His run slowed and he stopped, turning towards the strange sound.

"OH MY GOD OH MY GOD..."

Three teenage girls were running towards him at an alarming rate. He looked at them curiously for a moment, before his eyes widened and he started running again, top speed.

"DAVID! DAVID WE LOVE YOU!"

As he ran, more people joined the girls. Though he didn't turn long enough to see, he knew there was a small crowd forming. More teenaged girls he saw, a few women, even men, chasing him down the street.

"DAVID!"

David? Who did these people think he was?

Jareth ducked down an alley to avoid the ever growing mob, catching a glimpse of some twenty people following him, and slid behind a dumpster.

They followed him into the alley way, and easily found his weak hiding spot.

They were grabbing at his clothes and his hair as he struggled to break free of them, tripping over a girl who was now on the ground, clinging desperately to one of his legs. He shook her off with a tremendous amount of effort, simultaneously dodging kisses from everyone in the group.

As he finally slipped past the majority, he started running again as fast as his legs could possibly carry him, unconsciously backtracking to his previous location. He neared the building he had originally come from, flew through the door and slammed it, pressing his back against the frame and leaning, _hard._

Almost immediately there was shrieking and pounding behind him, and he bounced against the door as it was jarred by collective fists and feet striking it repeatedly.

"Ludo!" Jareth called the beast over, he could never hold the door himself against so many, and the lock was unfortunately, er, broken.

The large mass of orange brown fur carried himself over, and took the king's place in front of the door, easily holding off the crowd. Jareth stepped away, and as soon as he was satisfied that it was safe, he turned to the room, unconscious bouncer included, and primped himself, smoothing the dust from his coat and leggings and running a hand through his even more than usually tousled hair.

Sarah stared at him for a moment, "Jareth?"

"Yes, love?"

"What. Was. That?"

He took a deep breath and regarded her solemnly. "Life experience, love. I think I can handle singing that damn song a few more times."

With that he walked to the couch, shooed away the goblins that had been settled there, and flopped onto it heavily, promptly falling alseep.

* * *

A/N: Oh, dear. Haha. So I don't know if I should apologize for this or not, but I choose not to. Deal. Lol.

By the way, I am hereby dedicating this to oh-you-pretty-things because; One: She beta'd for me, Two: The loin cloth/moldy cake/twelve year old boy thing was SO put in there because of her. There was this one really, _really_ bad story that I had read a while ago and pointed out to her, and it, for some reason, involved a loin cloth, (yes) a cake that went moldy in about five minutes (because it rained), and several very unpleasant sex scenes. The whole thing was really just a_ lame_ excuse for _bad _sex scenes. Written, we suspect, by a twelve year old boy.

And, yes, BOTH of his eyes are blue. The lighting in the room and angle of his face DON'T matter. The light in the room and the angle of his face make it LOOK like it changes because of the perpetually dilated pupil. It's an optical illusion. That's it, still BOTH blue.

Love love.


End file.
